A musical play about the Paper Brigade in the Vilna Ghetto and the rescue of Jewish culture. A new work featuring Yiddish songs, young singers, and contemporary compositions.

Descriptiontranslated from Hebrew (original)

The Paper Brigade | Di Papirene Brigada

The extraordinary story of the members of the Paper Brigade—poets, writers, and intellectuals from the Vilna Ghetto, who were forced by the Nazis to sort Jewish cultural treasures in preparation for their destruction, and chose to risk their lives to save them.

At the center are Avraham Sutzkever, Shmerke Kaczerginski, and their friends—a group that understood that the struggle for books, poems, and manuscripts was a struggle for memory and for the very existence of Jewish culture.

The play returns to the moments when, amid an impossible reality, some of the songs most closely identified with Vilna and the ghetto were written and created—“Under the Radiance of the Stars,” “Ponary,” “Friling,” and “Do Not Say This Is the Last Way”—and to the people behind the words.

A new musical play connecting the story of the members of the Paper Brigade with a young generation of singers and creators, graduates of the Rimon School of Music, who give the songs of the period and Yiddish song new life through original, contemporary arrangements, under the musical direction of Ohad Hitman.

They risked their lives to save the words.

Now their words return to the stage.

Cast: Michael HaNegbi, Yehonatan Rosen, Coral Annabelle Lukatz

Itay Evron, Ariel Boing'iu, Liam Furman, Lihi Yulzari, Nitai Yaniv, Maya Levy, Adi Arbel, Rotem Sharabi, Saar Alon

Written by: Hadas Calderon and Oded Ehrlich

Direction and Artistic Direction: Hadas Calderon

Musical Consulting and Project Management: Ohad Hitman

Musical Direction: Itay Evron and Liam Furman

Sound Programming: Ariel Boing'iu

Yiddish Language Guidance and Coaching: Shriel Yosef

Movement Design: Tom Applebaum

Video Design: Yaara Niral